MacMini M4 ... is it still of known Apple quality?

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#82
Some 20 years ago in a period of my life called "earn money , spend money" I bought Apple eMac for my Mom because she was killing PC machines with her
" free offers on everything" mania. That sucker cured me on anything Apple related. That stuff is for Lemmings
 
#83
I loved the eMac. After they died — many, many years of use. Schools bought a boat load, then the offices we serviced . The early ones came with 2 x JBL 35mm WB, later Foster (close to 50). And some kool heat sinks for the creative DIYer. Compact, cheap, reasonably powered, a bitch to take apart if you need to get inside — didn’t happen often.

dave
 
#85
limono said:
That sucker cured me on anything Apple related. That stuff is for Lemmings
Click to expand...
This is largely but not completely true. The platform has some very positive sides but the lifestyle aspect is apparently attractive to many people that have a need to fill an empty gap. There is a smaller group that have the stuff and realize it is overpriced but take that for granted and still see the positive sides and the sturdiness of the OS and the way things are made user friendly. It is a fact that maintenance time of MacOS is way lower than other platforms (I was once a Windows NT 4.0 IT guy). The conspicuous consumption model by Apple and the faster and faster cycle of replacement is often not their cup of tea either. These are more critical and can see differences and developments they do not like and speak about it. You can recognize them by the faces they pull when they see anything "rose gold" 🙂

This seems to clash somehow. It translates to people becoming very personal, blaming the user, mansplaining the simplest of features, mentioning all stuff from the past that still works etc. In an audio thread they would be the first to say it is off topic. Not when it is about their identity/computer gender. Literally everything is allowed to make a point how great stuff is. It is like talking about meat with vegans. The church of Apple does not allow dissidents, these need to be expelled.

In my thread!
 
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#87
Thank you, Jean-Paul, for warning about the M4 mini. Strange design choices indeed. I have had mixed feelings about the brand in the past, for instance when the less than ideal air flow cooling in a not-so-cheap 17” MacBook caused components on the mainboard to get detached. I won’t even start about the cost of additional memory and storage when you buy new equipment.

But never since I took a G3 PowerPC in the house (many moons ago) have I considered to return to the main end-consumer type of OS. At the company where I worked, we had departmental Sun servers that were rebooted only three times in seven years and then only because of powerline works. Then, some management decided to migrate to Windoze servers and SQL Server replacing Solaris and Oracle DB and then the trouble really started 🙂 — more than 20 years ago, of course.

One wonders why the new Mini couldn’t have a case (and inputs/outputs) more like the new Studio. Does it really mean that amount of production cost savings 🤔
 
#88
No one can say anything positive about the RAM and SSD prices indeed. These are outright outrageous. The fact that you can not replace them yourself or by an Apple center says enough. I have a model where the SSD is soldered to the logic board and a defective SSD means the necessity of a new logic board. This is flaky but one does not have choice in that. The only real choice is to have a specially ordered model with more RAM or larger SSD and pay about double the price for the extra silicon. Still, reliability used to be high but when stuff breaks down the costs are so high it means having to buy a new device.

Haven't opened the M4 as the plastic bottom is mount with plastic clips that may break off but it seems to have a replaceable SSD but of course not a normal industry model because (insert marketing gibberish here). No ties to the company (I would not buy non A brand parts anyway) but the SSDs look like this:

https://m4-ssd.com/

To guys like me the challenge is to find ways around the restrictions. The restrictions nearly always turn out to be have been designed in deliberately for no technical reason. I have changed processor frequencies, updated RAM and SSD in the past of a few models sometimes with pretty high risk. No blah blah. Often the necessary parts were sold by guys working in Chinese factories where the stuff is built. This has been short circuited by Apple. There is a similarity with audio companies that scratch off IC markings 😀

Slowly the lack of RAM has become a user and returning review annoyance so the M4 has 16 gb as a minimum which is good. My M2 has 8 gb and it works OK but it was also strange in 2023 to have a meagre 8 gb. The 256 gb SSD standard model was slower than its predecessor, also something unusual. Steve Jobs was a clever paradise bird with a vision, I really do wonder what he would think of the M4.
 
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#89
I typically always want more RAM. It’s a reflex from my days using systems that mismanaged it.
The other reason is that I compare prices and often see cheaper machines with more of it.
But I also have a M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM only and I can run half a dozen applications on it at the same time, with Chrome and Safari having a couple dozens of open tabs, and it works great.

Of course, if I did memory-intensive tasks, like video editing, it would be a disaster, but in Apple’s plan, these machines are not the right tools for this.

So, in my case, I am pissed that others could get more RAM for less money, but I don’t seem to miss it in actual use.
 
#93
(2) Intel, (1) M1. They just stopped working and SMC reset does not work at all. It seems power related issue and they just refuse to power up. I don't see any damage on the PCB. They all look very clean, so still keep them in the closet. If you know how to fix it, please let me know!
 
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